@2 Please define “British values”, ensure that they are unique values that only someone who is British would possess.

@1 Because anyone who’s vaguely left-wing is a fan of Stalin?

@2 Republicans don’t have British values? What are “British values” anyway? Because I’m having an argument about it on Tumblr and this guy doesn’t seem to know either.

@Jasmine

As for British values, try my post @41 in the thread: Why I think the Monarchy is great, by Chris Dillow.

Of greater merit and insight, there is always that delicious satirical poem: A True-born Englishman (1703), by Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, who is widely regarded as the first of the many novelists writing in the English language:
http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm

“I wonder how many russia’s took to the streets in support of Stalin during his reign? Just a thought.”

Stalin had a Moscow constituency and it was not unknown for his total vote in elections to exceed 100% of the registered electorate.

The sad aspect is that Stalin had and still has an enthusiastic fan club at home and abroad.

For much of the post-war period, the Communist Party in France was the most Stalinist minded this side of the Iron Curtain. When Georges Marchais, Secretary General of the Party in France (1972-94), was pressed for comment on the crumbling Soviet empire c.1990, he replied: “I tell you, they didn’t arrest enough. They didn’t imprison enough. If they had been tougher and more vigilant, they wouldn’t have got into the situation they are in now.” [Jonathan Fenby: France on the Brink (1999)]

“hahahaha omg the dodgy royalist comments on this are hilarious”

Dig a little and I think you’ll find the “super royalists” know of Britain’s history, our traditions of political thought or about our heritage of literary and scientific achievment.

By way of a public service, I thought to post links to seminal texts of British political thinkers so the super royalists can get up to speed:

Thomas Hobbes: The Leviathan (1660)
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html

John Locke: Two Treatises of Government (1689)
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/locke/government.pdf

David Hume: Of the Original Contract (1748)
http://www.constitution.org/dh/origcont.htm

Jeremy Bentham: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781)
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/bentham/index.htm

Seminal texts of British political thinkers continued:

JS Mill: On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861) and Utilitarianism (1863)
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/mill.htm

Walter Bagehot: The English Constitution (1873)
http://dbwf.net/images/W_Bagehot_on_the_British_Constitution(1877).pdf

Bob B.

I believe you are simply posting what I said people were being proud of;
Being British and Britain itself.

Something The Left hates so much.

@12: “So try again commie.”

You probably don’t appreciate this but none of the seminal texts of the British political thinkers I posted @10 and @11 were in any sense “marxist” although Locke did have a moral labour theory of value. Curiously, for all that he had much influence on those who framed the US Constitution in the late 18th century.

Accusing me of being a “commie” displays lamentable political ignorance. My main complaint about royalty is that it is routinely used by way of the ancient Roman prescription of bread and circuses to divert public attention from news they would likely find unwelcome, such as this news item on the front page of Friday’s FT:

Hospitals told to look for 50% more savings
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b087ff20-71d1-11e0-9adf-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&ftcamp=crm/email/2011429/nbe/UKMorningHeadlines/product#axzz1KuTsvIGG

I wonder how many more healthcare jobs will go because of that, and how much care for patients will be cut back and how many patients will die sooner as a result..

“Something The Left hates so much.”

I’ve often posted that I regard the traditional left-wing, right-wing distinction as meaningless and misleading – just to take one glaring example, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a Friendship Treaty on 28 September 1939 when Britain and France were already at war with Germany. This is the text of that treaty:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/gsbound.asp

@Bob B

Yes Bob, Stalin was one of the bad guys but had an enthusiastic fan club at home and abroad. So does the royal family. Most of our royal family where in Hitler’s fan club. We should not forget that It was the’ lefty’ British working class that built the spitfire, not some chinless /spineless toff. Apparently Obama is a socialist and a Nazi. Is he a real America or black? Perhaps he’s both royalist and a Stalinist as well? Perhaps the climate change is a conspiracy to create world wide communism? Just more dumb assed thoughts….

Engels on Kate Middleton: “The English bourgeoisie are so deeply penetrated by a sense of social inferiority that they keep up, at their own expense, an ornamental caste of drones to represent the nation at state functions; and consider themselves honored whenever one of themselves is found worthy of admission into this select and privileged body, manufactured, after all, by themselves.”

A great day celebrating the wedding of two people they’ve never met, never will meet, and who consider them worthless commoners – cannon fodder essentially. Yes, a really great day. Neurosis much?

Well this is lovely, but what about the may day occupation of trafalger square?

“Well this is lovely, but what about the may day occupation of trafalger square?”

Anyone running a book on the number of arrests by the close of play?

There is no way – no way in heaven – that you’ll beat this for an affecting spectacle…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Z7RbM7sws&feature=related

@10 and @11 relate:

Someone has pointed out to me that in the links to seminal texts of British political thinkers, I omitted to mention the English Hegelians:

Bernard Bosanquet: The Philosophical Theory of the State:
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/bosanquet/state.pdf

Thomas Hill Green: Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation
http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/green/obligation.pdf

My only excuse is that they were writing in the tradition of German idealism, not the British tradition. But in their time, both were influential, Green especially so on notions of “positive freedom” and moral obligations in politics and in civil communities. On the (crucial) distinction between notions of “negative” and “positive” freedom, see Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty:
http://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/Ankuendigungen/Berlin_twoconceptsofliberty.pdf

OP: “To make the square livable for 48 hours, participants are asked to look after the area and put litter in bins provided.”

This statement carries the suggestion that protesters might be less considerate for a shorter event.

In case anyone is interested, I can add links to two seminal texts on political thought in Britain from the 20th century:

Michael Oakeshott: On Being Conservative
http://faculty.rcc.edu/sellick/On%20Being%20Conservative.pdf

Karl Popper: The Open Society and Its Enemies (2 vols)
http://ambidextrouscivicdiscourse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Karl-Popper-Open-Society-and-Its-Enemies.pdf

@Bob B – How do you convert a socialist? Remind them about their selfish gene (I love Hobbes too)
Want to stop socialists blaming capitalism for everything, even the weather? Remind them that socialists are not allowed to dream! Marx doesn’t like dreams Therefore i don’t like Marx .

@18: “How do you convert a socialist?”

What with Tony Blair and the previous collapse of the Soviet empire, there aren’t many fully confessed socialists around any longer.

As best I can tell, even Tony Blair wants to forget all about that 22-page letter he wrote to Michael Foot in 1982:

“In the 22-page letter, the 29-year-old Mr Blair tells then Labour leader Michael Foot how reading Marx had ‘irreversibly altered’ his outlook. He also praises Tony Benn, agreeing with the left-winger’s analysis that Labour’s right-wing was bankrupt.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5081798.stm

As for China, nowadays we are getting books like: Red Capitalism, by Fraser Howie and Carl Walter – here is a review in the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576190864046071514.html

I feel bound to say that this is very impressive – and clearly intended to be so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSuEZSm8ZEA

By comparison, Trooping the Colour, Britain’s equivalent, looks very modest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOh1cqAsJo0

God save all those bears. As the Duke of Wellington was reported to have said on inspecting his troops just before one of his battles: I don’t know what they do to the enemy but by G*d they frighten me.

For those interested [ http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2011/04/30/the-occupation-of-trafalgar-square-and-other-concerns-of-space/ ]